Disney LEGO Castle # 71040 - Exterior light installation

Anyone have a build thread for installing the exterior light kit?

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  • Hey everyone. My first post here.

    I just received my own Disney Castle for my birthday last night and first thing I did was come here to get a light kit.

    Im pretty sure I have read through all the msgs (took forever haha) and there are some fantastic setups.

    Im more interested in the exterior lighting kit with the 2nd light controller. My questions are,

    1: for the exterior light kit are the lights easy to install and hide the wiring?

    2: do these kits come with instructions on how to set them up?

    3: do I get charged the full amount straight away when I order or when the order is ready to be dispatched as its a pre order at the moment till Sept

    4th and last question... for now, these light kits can definitely be installed on a pre built castle? I dont want to build it only to have to take it apart or have to wait till Sept to build it, I've waited this long I dont want to wait anymore haha.

    Also how long did it take everyone to build this set?

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  • Alex O'Connell said:
    1: for the exterior light kit are the lights easy to install and hide the wiring?

    2: do these kits come with instructions on how to set them up?

    3: do I get charged the full amount straight away when I order or when the order is ready to be dispatched as its a pre order at the moment till Sept

    4th and last question... for now, these light kits can definitely be installed on a pre built castle? I dont want to build it only to have to take it apart or have to wait till Sept to build it, I've waited this long I dont want to wait anymore haha.

    Also how long did it take everyone to build this set?

     All awesome questions.  In order, based on my own experience (four decades of LEGO dorking -- I'm kinda old people by some standards), or six months' "Castle" experience...

    1. Yeah...sssss?  I admit my setup is a bit more than out-of-the-box.  I've mounted this beauty on a lazy susan, which both makes it easier for child's play (literally, ask my -year-old), but not nearly as stable as pushing down to re-snap pieces than on, say, a counter or wood surface.

      That said, I did the unthinkable and cut a few bricks (cheap ones in unseen places) to better hide wires to my liking.  Nothing that'd send me to LEGO jail, but just sharing to be fully in-the-open. My biggest pains were the front lanterns: the wire placement was good, but the bricks weren't AS snug as I wanted, and -- being prone to pushing too hard and breaking wires a few times in the past -- I chose to cut vs. break wires.

      Being on the lazy susan, the wire hide was pretty easy - but in this setting, I ended up with a gap between the susan's edge and castle, kind of like a mini-moat, and the stray wires went in there.  On the upper level, honestly, it's a bit of a wirey mess - though I'm lazy and skipped some tidy steps - and I did add a wire hiding wall behind the clock (where most of the connections "live"). 

      That said, perhaps my personal pain is disconnecting the middle section from the ground section IF you have the interior light kit also... as the Interior has three wires that need to be removed from the ground floor to remove the middle section. The top section to middle has an AWESOME quick-connect to make that one simple.  As such - I don't remove the middle section, and in keeping it in place, the semi-visible exterior wires on that mid-section brown outside platform are a moot issue.
       
    2. There are detailed instructions, yes, and if you hit a snag, there's this nice user forum.  ;) 
       
    3. If nothing's changed from my pre-order, it's billed/paid at the time of purchase.  (But if things change, they're all super nice here, so you'd just hit up the BrickStuff guys and they're great to work with whatever you've got going on, concerns wise or the like.)
       
    4. Build it!  It's fun, and the disassembly is minor at best - pop off the tower turrets (I did a personal modification there, too), or remove a wall.  The wall un-snap is probably the biggest disassembly, but it goes quick with a brick separator, Swiss Army knife or (like me), both.  The can-opener works wonders separating snug bricks...  AND - the instructions are from the perspective of a built set.  Some of the install as-you-build may mean you need to noddle through placing wires through parts that don't yet exist.  (More prevalent in the interior vs exterior lights, but still.)
       
    5. Set build?  Gosh... I did it over the course of a few nights, maybe... 5-6+ hours?  Depending on patience, distractions (Simpsons on FXX, Diet Pepsi/drink of choice, child(ren) helpers...)

     

    My bride -- who typically doesn't give a flying fig about LEGO nor lights -- encouraged the second controller, and it's a nice add-on.  It effectively gives you three color sequences during fireworks shows: the fiber-optic sprays, the upper lights illuminating the middle section, and the lower section - all being 'colored' separately.  I've got some video on Instagram as user legometro)  that shows it in action beyond what BrickStuff has on their pages.

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  • Paul George  thank you so much for taking the time to answermy questions. Very helpful. Im pretty crafty so im sure I can find ways to mostly hide the wires. I dont think I will have this set on a lazy susan or the like, it will mainly be front facing with the figures scattered around the front.

    Ultimately I hope to build up around the sides a bit but that will be a long term goal. Im so excited to start this build 

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  • Alex O'Connell I have zero regrets in my brick cuts for installing the front two lanterns.  As the photo shows I shared above, while it looked fine (at least on first glance), in person there was enough of a gap that I didn't love it.  And let's just be honest: for the cost of the LEGO castle and lights, we've all invested the equivalent ofa down payment on a used Kia, so one should love the result.

    The cut in the modified light bluish gray plate was a hack job, er, hacksaw - just to give the wires an easy path to the dive from the horizontal down to the vertical and toward the base.  And in my mind, hey, these aren't unique parts: this baby is averaging about 5¢ (USD) on Bricklink (part # 3176). 

      

    ... and from there, these treasures needed a clear(er) channel to the base, so a utility knife had me giving a haircut to the 1x4 plate (pn# 3710, also under 10¢ a pair) inside - so both mods are invisible to the untrained, unaware eye. 

     

    That aside, the only "dorking" I did involved mounting things slightly different, as noted in threads above with my new-found love for "boat stud plates" (

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  • Paul George awesome pictures of your mods. I will definitely save those for later when my lights arrive

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  • Alex O'Connell Hi Alex, thank you for posting on the forum, and congratulations on getting your castle set!  Paul (as always) did a fantastic job answering your questions.  Please let us know if you have any additional q's, and please keep us posted on your progress building!

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  • There is now Alex O'Connell - I just relocated your earlier inquiries to its own thread.  🙂

    And for anything else - send it along and we'll see what we can to do help / answer / etc.!

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  • Hopefully this is the right thread for my question. I'm installing the exterior light package without cutting any bricks. When I ran the wiring for the right front lantern as recommended in the instruction, the cable does not make it to the A15 board in the first floor opening.  Has anyone ran into this issue?

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  • Manuel Díaz I *think* I did -- but turned out I mixed up the lantern lights (I was either confused, or had consumed too much caffeine and candy) AND my placement of the A15 wasn't quite flawless.

    Once I swapped the two lantern wires around, it was far roomier (even absent the brick cutting I did -- which was for front appearances, not due to wire lengths).

    What tripped me up was the LEFT and RIGHT designation.  (And the amount of actual and faux sugar, no doubt.) The 12-inch, regular plug wire is intended for the RIGHT side of the castle - from the perspective of looking at the front of the castle, the same side as the urn and the kitchen on the second level.

    The 18-inch wire with the mini/picon plug) of the two lanterns should end up on the LEFT side of the castle, which where you'd find the interior grandfather clock.

    Again - this is where I'd had a bit o' trouble and how I straightened it out - results may vary, objects in mirror may be larger than they appear.  (And I can also snap photos if that'd help, too...)

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  • Paul George Thanks for the clarification, Paul.  I think you are right about the left vs. right designation.  We may need to revisit that in the documentation.  Manuel Díaz let me know if Paul's explanation helps fix your situation.

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  • I did mount the 12" pico light in the right lantern (facing the castle). The cable is about 1" too short to connect to the A15. I could move the A15 some back but it will be a tight connection.

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  • Manuel Díaz I'll go crack open the creation and see where I've got it mounted tonight and post/share the turn-by-turn of how it threaded in...

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  • Paul George  I ran the wire through the top left hand side of the arch shown in figure 20 (had to remove some of the top plates to get through). This gave a little more slack to make the connection.

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  • Good to hear!  But I confess I'm curious as to the "why" part of it giving you trouble.  (Still need to get it opened up; darn day job proving to be a distraction in that they expect me to work *until* 5pm, the nerve...!)

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  • Paul George I understand the frustration of the day job! I have one of those too and they can detract from the really important stuff like playing with your Legos :-)

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  • I'm done installing all the lights and have a few suggestions:

    1. It would help a lot to have the instructions online with high resolution images that one can zoom in. Descriptions are good but a high quality image is better (specially for those of us that have tired eyes!)
    2. the single connector between the upper section and mid section is fantastic. Wish there was a single connector also between the bottom and mid-section instead of connecting three individual wires. Minor thing but it would make it a lot easier to take the sections appart.
    3. longer cables between the fiber optics sprays would be nice to allow routing the cables against the bricks. I realize there is no way to hide the cable but at least it would not be dangling in the middle of the rooms. Something minor but IMHO it would make the back of the castle look better.
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  • Manuel Díaz Thanks for the great feedback!  All very good points.  We've received several requests for the manuals in electronic form-- I'm always curious to see whether people prefer to build working from a set of printed instructions, or from a device like a laptop or tablet.  Definitely something for us to keep in mind.

    Great point also about the single connector between the bottom and mid-sections.  Something for us to think about, though making one cable would increase the labor cost of making the kit (more soldering of wires).  Still, I know what you're saying about how having a cable like that would make it easier.

    We've received several requests for longer cables between sprays as well.  We're actually working on a new connector system for color-changing lights like the sprays that will have each light module plug into a central plug strip-- this will make it possible to route cables in ways they can't be routed when they are in a fixed daisy-chain configuration like they are today.

    Thanks again for your feedback!  Definitely keep the suggestions coming.

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  • For my money, the printed instructions are a nice base-layer for steps, and in 98% of the instances carried me to the next step without a second glance.

    But there's always a 2%, and that's when a re-read, trial and error or magnifying glass came into play.  For me (and perhaps Manuel Díaz given the questions), the front lanterns were a bit tricky, as well as the placement of the adapter boards when it came time to marry together the interior lights with the exterior connections.  In these few cases, it would have been handy to have a larger and/or high-resolution photo available to sort out how the kit was designed against the as-delivered castle.  

    I can't recall if it was here or a private suggestion via email -- yes, the mid-section to bottom connector is probably my biggest grumble of the few I had.  (And yes, I'd happily pay more for such a feature -- removing the mid-section from the base section is a hassle and a half, and frankly, why I didn't bother trying when installing the exterior lights.)  I did do the disconnect when it came time to install the color-changing and firework kit, but only because I'd finally been cornered into tilting and rotating the castle off its normal resting place.

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  • Anyone had trouble with one of the lanterns, the light that came with the gold stud isn't working, any ideas?

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  • don't worry, the wire had broken, just need to splice it together...

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  • Kathryn Forbes oh... ouch!  Did the wire get pinched?  (I've done that to myself a few times, and yup, a twist splice and/or solder and good as newish)!

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  • Paul George I'm not sure, though when laying the castle on its side I did have a catastrophe and had to rebuild most of the archways, maybe it was that. Yes I twisted the wire back together with tape which helped flatten the wires making it a bit easier on the installation second time around! All working now, onto the coloured lights and fibre optics next which hopefully isn't as arduous on me or the castle!

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  • Kathryn Forbes The highest point on the journey is definitely the interior lights -- exterior and fibre lights are far easier (the latter is the easiest; they just snap on).  🙂

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  • Kathryn Forbes Glad to hear you were able to successfully repair your lantern!

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    • Chris L
    • Chris_L
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hey everybody. I have a question regarding the interior lights. For some reason when I go to connect the upper most tower to the middle section by lining up the two red dots on the single connector, all of the interior lights go out and only the stove, torches, and chandelier stay lit. When I unplug it, the interior lights in the middle section come back on. I've double checked the wiring,  but can't figure this out. Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! :)

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